To be ohnest with you, I have a lot of doubts that everything what we know about HIV is true. I've read a lot about it, even if HIV dosn't couse AIDS I don't want to have it. This is intersting that we can find a lot of data about HIV on websites of non-beleivers. I can't find a lot of data about it on official websites. I'm asking why? On these websites you can find usually what it's HIV, what does it couse and what you can do if you have it. For me it's imposible that after 25 years, in genetic era we still don't anything. I think it's a huge business for pharmaceutical companies that we have no cure for HIV.

chicagomen saidTo be ohnest with you, I have a lot of doubts that everything what we know about HIV is true. I've read a lot about it, even if HIV dosn't couse AIDS I don't want to have it. This is intersting that we can find a lot of data about HIV on websites of non-beleivers. I can't find a lot of data about it on official websites. I'm asking why? On these websites you can find usually what it's HIV, what does it couse and what you can do if you have it. For me it's imposible that after 25 years, in genetic era we still don't anything. I think it's a huge business for pharmaceutical companies that we have no cure for HIV.

The situation is everyone is different so HIV effects everyone differntly so they can't just make one cure. It's a mutative virus that comes in many forms and fashions. Also the drugs that are avalible out there to combat the virus,and there are a lot of them, because everyone is different the side effects make some worst and some better than others depending on who it is. Which also makes the results different. Understand that this is something that is an epidimic and has only been studied hard core now for 25 years. If you are really interested get intouch with anyone from the Infectious Desies Clinic from Emory University in Atlanta.

I would like you to present your point of view to someone who has lost a loved one to HIV/AIDS, chicagomen.

To watch your man waste away, going blind and terrified by what is happening to him. The array of drugs that he had to take to just keep himself alive (albeit not for long). To be witness to government's who said "they're just poofs!" as they withheld funding for health initiatives that could have helped.

Our world comes together to help those in need all the time, such as the Tsumani in Indonesia and the flood in New Orleans. Where were those charitable forces when gay people were being wiped out in enormous numbers in the early eighties?

Answer? Nowhere.

It is only from the activism and efforts of the gay people on the ground when HIV hit us that we are now able to control this insidious disease.I am now 38 years old. I am young enough to have been around when the condom revolution arrived. Many of my old friends weren't. I lost so many friends, lovers and even outward acquaintances - people you just see around.

You weren't even born when AZT was the only treatment for AIDS. It killed as randomly as it helped. Then we had PCP- intended to stop Karposi's Sarcoma. It did it's job, but to an amazing detriment.

I, personally, spent many years in fucking hospital rooms holding hands as I watched my friends die. I am haunted by those funerals, those times I had to explain to various mothers why their sons were gone.

I was part of the guerilla group who would raid my dead friend's house to remove all porn, lube and toys - whatever! By the time his mom came around, grief stricken, she would find NOTHING to make her son any less than that little boy she remembered.

I'm a lucky boy.I was part of the condom revolution. I have never had unsafe sex.I knew from my upbringing that unsafe sex was dangerous. But between me and the guys who didn't have safe sex there is only a couple of years.

Yes,today, there are the triumvirate of drugs and processes that keep HIV/AIDS at bay. It is no longer a death sentence, for which we are all grateful. But, I ask you - do you want to live the rest of your life reliant on the routine of taking a potent mix of drugs every day, just to keep you alive?

A friend once tried to convince me that HIV was not the cause of Aids. His argument (which doesn't hold any water imho) was that all those Africans got Aids and since they were not tested for Hiv, nobody could prove that Hiv caused Aids. I'm still rolling my eyes on that one. He also believed in a conspiracy of doctors and pharmaceutical companies, putting out fake information to try and exploit the crisis for the financial gain. I'm not cynical enough to believe this, especially about doctors.

Back in the late '80s/early '90s, when I was editing a magazine, I assigned a reporter to spend six months investigating the claims of people like Peter Duesberg (whom I've interviewed myself). Because my partner is an HIV/AIDS researcher, the reporter got plenty of access to prominent scientists on both sides of this question.

There is simply no evidence that HIV isn't the most significant factor in the development of AIDS. I remember that Duesberg kept saying he would intentionally infect himself with HIV, but somehow managed to forget to do this.

Frankly I didn't know there were many people still around who deny HIV's role in AIDS.

I beleve there is a link bewteen HIV & Aids, But I also believe alot of these drug cocktail combinations cause alot of the Aids sympothoms. The alternative is probaly far worse. My Ex was Poz, I know his doctors use to give him Drug holiday, and it helped alot of his ill symptoms.

I like to think I take a very balanced view on this. If there are people out there who think they have scientific evidence to support the hypothisis that the HIV virus does not cause AIDS, then it is their responsibility to present this evidence, and to show that it can withstand scientific scrutiny.

That being said, there is one thing you can not get around. If you develop AIDS, you have HIV in your blood. And to my knowledge, there is nobody who has ever developed AIDS without it.

Whether a person agrees or disagrees with the theory, it is interesting. Even just from the standpoint of the treatments and western medical approach.

Yes, there are a growing number of scientists, physicians and researchers who dispute the current perspective and treatment on HIV and it's relation to AIDS, proper treatment at what time, side effects of drugs matching the symptoms of a disease, having nothing to do with market and business considerations of the pharmaceutical industry.

I don't know of anyone who disputes that AIDS exists, but how HIV is directly related has always been of dispute, only recently has it become a more public dispute.

HIV is not the only case to site of wide acceptance and institution of practice or treatment on a subject that is in question. Nor would it be the only case to explore in terms of human management, macroeconomics of crisis, politics, government or medicine.

No matter the position on theory, it does not change the case that safe sex is really the only option for preserving a healthy body. There are lots of nasty bugs out there a person can get through unsafe sex. Many people have suffered and died from a lack of understanding of HIV, an evolving practice of treatment and more time and money needs to be spent on research in addition to treatment.

I do know more than a few researchers, nurses, physicians, counselors and even a couple of drug developers who have discussed the issue. Only a couple of them when asked have said that there is a clear link between HIV and AIDS and I don't know two doctors who would approach treatment in the same way, off the record. On record, that's a different story.

I'd like to read the article Obscenewish talked about and I'd love to see more links on both sides. Anyone have them?

No one disagrees that they are terrible things, but science is based on objective thought. If everyone agreed, science would go nowhere. The clashing of ideas in science leads us to more accurate views.It would suck if everyone just agreed that the world was flat, and no one went against this train of thought.

That being said, there is one thing you can not get around. If you develop AIDS, you have HIV in your blood. And to my knowledge, there is nobody who has ever developed AIDS without it.

Actually this is one thing I know isn't completely true. There are many documented cases where people with AIDS do not have HIV in their blood. I'll see if I can find the link to that research.

By all means, please post it. However, you may be confusing the term AIDS. The A stands for aquired. Meaning that you need to do some action to get it. (sorry if that sounds smug, it isn't my intention). As in contracting a virus, for example.

There are also people who don't believe the Holocaust really happened either. Doesn't mean you should give credence to it.

There is a very clear link between HIV and AIDS. The reason why treatment varies is because people vary. Everyone's immune system is different, and when you are providing a therapy that targets the immune system or a virus that attacks it, everyone is going to have a slightly different response. That's just how virus/host relationships work.

There are well documented cases of HIV + people going decades without the need of therapy. And there are documented cases of people who have high exposure and never contract. There's even documented cases on people clearing the virus from there system.

This is a pretty well-documented phenomenon with most viruses. Smallpox is a good example of this.

I work in Africa. I see the effect of HIV/AIDS on a population that does not have access to "treatments". Trust me, it's real.

chicagomen saidTo be ohnest with you, I have a lot of doubts that everything what we know about HIV is true. I've read a lot about it, even if HIV dosn't couse AIDS I don't want to have it. This is intersting that we can find a lot of data about HIV on websites of non-beleivers. I can't find a lot of data about it on official websites. I'm asking why? On these websites you can find usually what it's HIV, what does it couse and what you can do if you have it. For me it's imposible that after 25 years, in genetic era we still don't anything. I think it's a huge business for pharmaceutical companies that we have no cure for HIV.